A young man won local fame as a bicycle long-distance rider. But
over-fatigue, possibly coupled with neglect, caused contraction of
certain muscles. He was unable to stand erect. He walked with bent back,
like an old man. "What useful work can he do, handicapped as he is?"
his friends asked.
But he did not lose courage. He continued to smile and make cheer for
others. Finally he secured work in the office of the supervisor of a
National Forest. And he made good. Most of his activities were at the
desk; when he sat there his back was normal.
According to the idea of many, it would have been enough for the
crippled man to look out for himself. What could he do for others? But
he had not been trained in such a school; the cheerfulness that enabled
him to be useful made it impossible for him to see another in need and
not plan to do something for him.
The man who needed him was at hand--a cripple, whose feet were clumsy,
misshapen. No one else thought that anything could be done for him but
to speak dolefully and to assure him that he was fortunate in having
parents and brothers who would look out for him.
But the man in the Forestry Service urged the cripple to apply for a
summer appointment on the rocky, windy summit of a mountain nine
thousand feet high. There it would be his duty to keep a vigilant eye on
the forest stretching far away below his lofty eyrie, and to report the
start of a forest fire. At first he laughed at the idea; had he not
been told that he could never hope to do anything useful? Yet as he
listened to his friend his eyes began to sparkle. Finally he dared to
agree to make application for the position.
During the winter months the forester spent many evenings with his
friend, coaching him in some of the lore of the forests, giving him
books to read, and showing him what his specific duties would be, and
how to perform them.
In the spring the situation was secured, and when the season of forest
fires came the young man bravely climbed the steep trail over the snow
to his lonely cabin. An able-bodied man is able to make the climb from
the end of the wagon road in much less than an hour; the cripple
required more than five hours to reach the top. Then he took up his
residence there, cooking his own food, making his observations from
morning until night, receiving his mother and his brothers when from
time to time they came to see how he was getting on and to help him in
some of the rougher tasks about the cabin. They thought they would need
to speak words of cheer to a lonely, discouraged man, but they soon
learned their error; not only did he have cheer enough for himself, but
he was able to send his visitors away happier than when they came
because of their contact with the man for whom life had been made over
by the acts of a thoughtful friend, a friend whose own courage had been
increased by his efforts to encourage a friend.